The owner of the Carlsbad-based Hot Dog on a Stick fast-food chain filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, the company announced Monday.

HDOS Enterprises filed its petition in U.S. Bankruptcy Court's Central District of California Division in Los Angeles, seeking relief so it can reorganize its business. It cited expensive leases as a main reason for its financial hardship. The company owes somewhere between $1 million and $10 million to at least 1,000 creditors, according to the filing, and holds between $10 million and $50 million in assets.

The employee-owned chain, a shopping mall staple serving up traditional fair food of hot dogs and lemonade, was originally established in Santa Monica in 1946 and became an icon for the bright red, white, blue and yellow stripped uniforms—and hats—worn by its employees. It operates 93 restaurants in 10 states throughout the West. San Diego County is home to nine of them.

HDOS Chief Executive Dan Smith said the company has no immediate plans to close any stores, but hopes to use the bankruptcy proceeding as a chance to renegotiate its leases, many of which were signed at the height of the real estate bubble.

"Like many mall-based businesses, HDOS signed some very expensive leases during the booming economy of the mid-2000s," Smith said. "Most of these leases were written for 10 years, and those that are really hurting us were written at the top of the market, 2004-2007, and they’re really hurting us. The world has changed, and to be stuck paying the same rates has been painful. That’s what we’re really looking for relief from."

HDOS will try to renegotiate all of its lease agreements, in hopes of lowering the rent on at least half of them.

The rent structure in malls can be difficult, said restaurant analyst and Pacific Management Consulting Group founder John Gordon. Sbarro, another food court staple, filed for bankruptcy protection in 2011 citing similar reasons.

"Generally, what works in food service are rents that run about 7 to 9 percent (of revenue)," Gordon said. "When Sbarro filed, they had some as high as 22 percent."

Smith said Hot Dog on a Stick is facing rents that amount to about 30 percent of its revenue, on average.

Meanwhile, a decline in shopping mall traffic has hurt sales numbers. Foot traffic at malls even during the holiday shopping season, for example, was down 15 percent in 2013 from the year before, according to data from research firm ShopperTrak. That followed declines of 28.2 percent in 2011 and 16.3 percent in 2012.

Gordon said malls have been trying to compensate for the dip in traffic by luring in higher-income shoppers with more fast casual food operators like gourmet sandwich-maker Stone Oven to replace old fast-food mainstays like McDonald's.

A snack-oriented, non-meal concept like Hot Dog on a Stick might need to broaden its menu to full meals to remain competitive, he said. It's not a bad idea for the company to try different settings for its stores either, he said.